come wake me up
by endlessly wandering
Summary: He keeps his eye on the American flag fading into the distance, and he wonders just how fine they're actually going to be.


**Uh, I think Darry is four years older than Soda? I hope, anyway.**

 **The flashback(s) is set years before, not eight months before like in the book. Like, literally, Darry is eighteen, Soda is fourteen, and Pony is twelve.**

 **come wake me up**

Their death is like a bad dream. Can't shake it; can't forget it. It's there, like the plague, slowly taking over your mind and completely altering your aspects of life.

Sometimes, it's easy to push it to the back of my mind—it's easy to throw on a smile and to actually, whole fully, forget about it for a while. Of course, it's always with the tip of a bottle, but it melts away like ice does with heat.

Tonight I'm stone cold drunk; the whole nine yards. I've never been one to drink—because Dad would smack me into next week if he ever saw—but laying here, sitting on my bed in the darkness of the night, there's no more room to care. And it's within these drunken states, these nights of kicking back and letting everything go, that I remember everything. It's within these drunken states that everything hits harder than the second before, and it plays out almost as if it happens all over again.

 _The first thing he sees is the whirring colors of police sirens. Red, white, blue; like the American flag._

 _Then he faintly hears the closing of a door, footsteps coming up their front driveway, and dread sets into his heart, sending the emotion rather than blood throughout the rest of his body._

 _It's here that his oldest brother, Darry, comes into view. At eighteen, he stands like a brick wall, a mass of solid muscle. At eighteen, he looks almost fourteen, almost too innocent to be the one opening a door with police on the other side. At eighteen, he had no idea of what was to come out of that policeman's mouth––_

 _He damn sure didn't expect this:_

 _"Darrel Curtis?"_

 _"That's me," Darry says it like it's no big deal. His voice is raw with a Southern bite to it, and it's what draws ladies to him––except he can't get one of 'em to save his life. He always says he likes it alone anyway––no room to get hurt. But how true was that?_

 _The cops step inside as if they live here, and immediately, he grabs hold of Ponyboy's hand, who sits just beside him on the floor, trying to wrestle with him. "Stop, Pone," he shushes, keeping his eyes on the cops, his gaze flickering between their stone-like faces and the pistols that glitter in the light. The twelve-year-old stares for a moment, blinking in confusion, but in a minute he's silent, finally noticing what's come into the house._

 _"We've, uh," the cop that spoke first rubs at his temples for a moment before fixated his gaze on Darry. "We got a problem, boys."_

 _Darry's rigid, his eyes beginning to grow dark. What could've happened? "What kinda problem, officer?"_

 _The second cop deadpans all noise on his contribution to the conversation:_

 _"Your parents were in a crash, kids. A big one, and a bad one at that. On the corner by the DX gas station."_

 _For a moment, all they hear is silence. All that is in the room is silence. Everything goes cold––the room, his body, Pony's hand, Darry's eyes; everything freezes over._

 _"We're sorry, boys," says the first cop, and it takes a moment for Darry to find words._

 _"How bad?" He knows that Darry is asking about the crash, but apparently, the cop doesn't seem to catch on for Darry says, "The crash. How bad was it?"_

 _"Dead on impact, son." answers the cop, as if that will ease them into solace. "Dead on impact."_

 _Something like a whimper passes through Darry's lips, and as the cops leave, Darry falls into a pit of sobs. He comes forward and takes both him and Pony into his arms, constantly saying that they're gonna be fine, that nothing is gonna break them apart, that they're gonna be fine and that their parents aren't dead and that it's gonna be fine. They're gonna be fine._

 _He keeps his eye on the American flag fading into the distance, and he wonders just how fine they're actually going to be._


End file.
